survival is a house of cards
by paregmenon
Summary: As a doctor, as a surgeon, there is a team of people for you to work with, as intergrated and as connected as the organs in the body. As an addict, an alcoholic, you have yourself.


**contains: past drug abuse, depression**

**written before the series aired. originally posted at AO3 - 29/5/2012**

* * *

As a doctor, as a surgeon, there is a team of people for you to work with, as intergrated and as connected as the organs in the body. As an addict, an alcoholic, you have yourself. You have yourself and your self control and your blinding self hatred and you have nobody but Sam, nobody but your sober companion because people look at you and they think, weak. Because people look at you and they think, just another woman who couldn't cut it out, who couldn't stick it out in a man's world.

She's thirty two and hasn't had a drink in seven years.

She's thirty two and every day she thanks Sam for not letting her give up.

.

Joan keeps beer in her fridge, wine behind the door. There is a bottle of whisky in a cabinet in her living room.

None of them have been touched.

.

One day she has some friends over, some colleagues, just some women from the hospital. They spy the wine and she says, I'll go get some glasses.

There are six people in the room. There are five glasses on the table, the light glinting off them and for a moment she is struck by their delicate beauty. If she holds it too tight, it will shatter. It reminds her of work. It reminds her of life.

Today she held a little girl's heart in her hands and put her back together, as good as new.

Today she held a little girl's heart in her hands and had to tell her parents, We did the best we could.

One of these happened. One of these did not.

Blink. The girl is alive.

Blink. The girl is dead.

In this universe, the girl is saved. In this universe, the glass does not crack.

There are five glasses on the table.

Aren't you going to have one, Joan? the women ask.

Aren't you going to have one, Joan? the women ask.

In another universe, the girl dies. In another universe, the glass cracks.

I don't drink, Joan says.

Alright, another Joan says.

.

When Joan is newly Doctor Watson and wears her white coat and title with pride, she treats a drug addict. The man had been to Yale, had studied mathematics, and talked about probabilities as she had taken his blood, had talked about life as she sat with him while his ended.

What had made him turn to drugs?

What had made him throw his life away?

When Joan is no longer Doctor Watson, is now just Ms Watson, she meets Sherlock Holmes.

She thinks she understands.

.

Holmes sees the wine. He sees the glasses in the cupboard, their long stems and the gleaming curves of the glass. He sees the unopened whisky, takes a beer from the fridge.

Holmes sees her and says, There's been a murder.

They never talk about it.

.

Holmes has locked his door, has not responded to her calls or texts.

She calls his associates at the NYPD and three of them turn up to help her. They say, Concern for his health and safety. They say, He's probably just done something stupid.

Holmes is lying in the middle of the kitchen floor, curled in a ball, with his legs tucked under his chin. His eyes are closed, but he is not sleeping.

I wa tired, he says when the police have left. I was tired but I was too tired to go back to bed.

Watson gives him coffee and toast and clothes to get changed into, helps him do up the buttons on his shirt when he struggles even as he argues that he can do it himself.

It's okay to accept help, she says.

He says nothing.

.

They're sitting on a park bench watching people pass. Normally Holmes would murmur things about them to her.

I get into these moods sometimes, he says, aiming for light and falling short. He isn't looking at her.

He isn't looking at her, so he doesn't see how much she understands what he's saying.

He probably knows already, but she likes the idea of privacy.

.

When Joan was twenty and on spring break, she didn't leave her bed for nearly a week until her mother came to visit and made her get up, made her eat, get watshed, get dressed.

You can't let this beat you, her mother had said. You're better than this.

.

Watson isn't looking at Holmes, either.

You can't let this beat you, she tells him. You're better than this.

He doesn't call her on it.

You will get through this.

He doesn't call her on it.

.

She likes the idea of privacy.

.

As a doctor, as a surgeon, there is a team of people for you to work with, as intergrated and as connected as the organs in the body.

Joan Watson has Sherlock Holmes.

The heart and the brain, the most important parts of the body. Everything inessential is cut away. They are stripped back to their core, they are exposed, revealed.

They are live wires; they are vulnerable. They are surviving.

They are surviving.


End file.
